psychology two questions n their answer

1) Describes the cognitive development of adolescence and its educational implication.
Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.
Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought:
1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2)
2. Pre-operational stage (from age 2 to age 7)
3. Concrete operational stage (from age 7 to age 11)
4. Formal operational stage (age 11+ - adolescence and adulthood).
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority).Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later. Adolescence is viewed as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, whose cultural purpose is the preparation of children for adult roles.
Adolescents may also experience a personal fable as a result of being able to think more abstractly. The personal fable is built on the fact that if the imaginary audience (peers) is watching and thinking about the adolescent, then the adolescent must be special or different. For decades, this adolescent egocentrism was thought to contribute to the personal fable of invincibility (e.g., other adolescents will get pregnant or get sexually transmitted infections) and risk-taking behavior.
Several studies have found that adolescents perceive more risk in certain areas than adults but that being aware of the risks fails to stop adolescents from participating
in risk-taking behavior. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate that adolescents may experience greater emotional satisfaction with risk-taking behavior. This satisfaction can predispose adolescents to engage in behavior despite being aware of risks. In addition, concrete-thinking adolescents may be unable to understand the consequences of actions (e.g., not taking medications), may be unable to link cause and effect in regard to health behavior (e.g., smoking, overeating, alcohol, drugs, reckless driving, and early sex), and may not be prepared to avoid risk (e.g., having condoms and avoiding riding with intoxicated drivers). Alternatively, youth who feel the personal fable is threatened can present with stress, depression, or multiple psychosomatic symptoms.
Third, the formal operational thinking characteristic of adolescence enables adolescents to think about thinking or meta-cognition. This characteristic allows youth to develop the capacity to think about what they are feeling and how others perceive them. This thought process, combined with rapid emotional and physical changes that occur during puberty, causes most youth to think that everyone is thinking not just about what they are thinking about but about the youth themselves (imaginary audience).
The imaginary audience can be detrimental to youth obtaining clinical care and services. For example, youth with chronic illnesses may hide or deny their illnesses for fear that the imaginary audience (peers) may learn about their condition or to prove to the audience that the condition does not exist. It is important to remember that the audience is very real to the adolescent. By being aware and sympathetic to the adolescent’s concerns, as a clinician, you might be able to find solutions to address the health needs and social needs of the patient.
Educational implication of cognitive development of adolescence.
This is defined the development and validation of a measure of adolescent student's perceived belonging or psychological membership in the school environment. Student's classroom engagement, academic effort, and subsequent school success or failure is influenced not only by individual differences in skills, abilities, and predispositions, but also by many situational and contextual factors. Among these contextual factors, the quality of school social relationships may be epically important. In the past few years, increasing research attention has been directed toward the influences of social relationship on educational outcomes. Therefore social environment is most influence factors of cognitive development of adolescence.
In studying adolescent development, adolescence can be defined biologically, as the physical transition marked by the onset of puberty and the termination of physical growth; cognitively, as changes in the ability to think abstractly and multi-dimensionally; or socially, as a period of preparation for adult roles. Major pubertal and biological changes include changes to the sex organs, height, weight, and muscle mass, as well as major changes in brain structure and organization. Cognitive advances encompass both increments in knowledge and in the ability to think abstractly and to reason more effectively. The study of adolescent development often involves interdisciplinary collaborations. For example, researchers in neuroscience or bio-behavioral health might focus on pubertal changes in brain structure and its effects on cognition or social relations. Sociologists interested in adolescence might focus on the acquisition of social roles (e.g., worker or romantic partner) and how this varies across cultures or social conditions. [16] Developmental psychologists might focus on changes in relations with parents and peers as a function of school structure and pubertal status. [17] Some scientists have questioned the universality of adolescence as a developmental phase, and argue that traits often considered typical of adolescents are not inherent.
There are some mental characteristics of cognitive development of adolescence of education and their impact. They are:
_Maximum Development of Intelligence
_Mental Freedom
_Attention
_Thinking Power
_Reasoning Power
_Development of Ability to make Decision
.2) Describe the socio-cultural dimension of learning from gender and ethnic perspective.
Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others. Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to collaborate with others on instructional tasks. Learning settings that allow social interactions, and respect for diversity encourage flexible thinking and social competence. In interactive and collaborative instructional contexts, individuals have an opportunity for perspective taking and replective thinking that may lead to higher levels of cognitive, social and moral development, as well as self-esteem. Quality personal relationships that provide stability, trust, and caring can increase the learner’s sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate for learning.Family influences, positive interpersonal support and instruction in self-motivation strategies can offset factors that interfere with optimal learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a particular subject, high levels of test anxiety, negative sex role expectations, and undue pressure to perform well Positive learning climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Such contexts help learners feel safe to share ideas, actively participate in the learning process, and create a learning community.
Culture is a broad and encompassing concept. Often, we equate culture with race or ethnic identity but that is not always the case. Culture refers to characteristics of the individual/society or of some subgroups with the society. It includes values, beliefs, notions about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and other socially constructed ideas that members of the culture are taught are true. It is also defined as the shared products of a human group of society. Although culture is shared, it must be learned by each new generation, through the process of social instruction. The sociology of culture shows that our way of thinking and categorizing, our hopes and fears, our likes and dislikes and our beliefs and habits are social creations, strongly influenced by the
time and place in which we live. Each culture is different because it is adapted to meet a specific set of conditions both physical and social factors help shape a particular culture…In short, culture governs how we think and feel. It shapes our beliefs about what it important in life and our interpretations of what events mean. As our world continues to change, students interact with others with quite different backgrounds from their own, especially in the classroom. The manner in which they respond to others who seem different can have an impact on their success in school, work and harmonious relationship with others. If they take time and make the effort to understand these differences, they may develop better relationships and succeed academically.
Learning from Gender perspective
Males and females learn differently from each other . Males tend to be more tactual, visual, need more mobility in a more informal environment, are more nonconforming and peer motivated than females. Females tend to be auditory, self- and authority-motivated, need significantly more quiet atmosphere while learning, and are more conforming than males . There are fundamental differences among male and female ways of communicating . It is belived that a male’s learning focuses on competitions, status and independence. On the contrary, a female’s world focuses on intimacy, consensus, and sometimes independence. Social preferences of males and females are also different in the process of learning. Male students prefer learning tasks connected with competitions in hierarchical groups, while female students learn by collaboration in small groups in which mutual liking is important . Males feel more comfortable in a lecturer’s role, which is a demonstration of expertise and status; females prefer a listener’s role, as a desire to collaborate, be liked by products of a world of connections,
not status . Females prefer to share their expertise with others, rather than rivalling with them. females prefer to keep peace, they see the orders that males give them as provocative and challenging while male students see suggestions that females make as infuriating and bossy .
Learning from Ethnic perspective A race is a human population that is believed to be distinct in some way from other humans based on real or imagined physical differences. An individual is usually externally classified (meaning someone else makes the classification) but individual may also self-identify with a particular racial group. Ethnicity, while related to race, refers not to physical characteristics but to social traits that are shared by a human population. Some of the social traits often used for ethnic classification include
:  Nationality
  Tribe
  religious faith
  shared language
 shared culture
 shared traditions


source file: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265916960_THE_PIAGET_THEORY_OF_COGNITIVE_DEVELOPME http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED182349.pdf textbook,class notes